The Johnston Sawmill Plant is a former listed sawmill of cultural heritage at the corner of Santowski Crescent and Peninsular Development Road, Mount Molloy, Shire of Mareeba, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1914 to 1954. It was added to the Queensland Heritage List on July 15, 2011.
Video Johnston's Sawmill Steam Plant
History
The previous John Michael Johnston Sawmill Sawmill, which consists of a brick-based Stirling water pipe boiler with chimneys and chimneys, the Marshall steam engine, Steam Walkers winch, and boiler blow down tank lies in a prominent position on the corner of Santowski Crescent and Peninsular Developmental Road (Mulligan Highway) in Mount Molloy. A small sawmill owned by Mount Molloy Copper Mine Company appears to have operated on the c.1908 site, and the larger JM Johnston sawmill operated between 1914 and 1963.
Mount Molloy Township was originally called "Smelter City", one of two settlements growing around its associated copper mine and copper smelter built near Rifle Creek, northwest of the mine. Copper was invented in 1885, either by patrol Pat Molloy or by Dan Cuddihy, one of the bulls' drivers. Molloy worked on the layer intermittently, earning around Ã, Â £ 500 before he left or sold the mine, taken by successful candidate James Venture Mulligan and businessman James Forsythe in the early 1890s. Mulligan and Forsythe earned about 3,000 pounds of ore before attracting the attention of the Melbourne syndicate, who bought the mine in 1898 for £ 6,000. The company failed to find copper ore debt, the mine was abandoned and charred mining leases. Forsythe regained the property of the mine, which was soon sold to JS Reid. It became part of John Moffat's ownership in 1901. Between 1880 and 1914, much of Northern Queensland's economic activity was guided by trains and mining towns made by John Moffat's companies, and the Chillagoe Company built a private railway between Mareeba and Chillagoe in 1898-191, and from Almaden to Forsayth during 1907-1910.
To avoid transporting ore from Mount Molloy to a government railway line in Biboohra (the train had reached Biboohra from Cairns in 1893), a smelter was built near Rifle Creek on Mount Molloy. The residence of the smelter manager is located on a hill just above the smelter, which began operations on November 25, 1904. A small sawmill was in the north-west of the smelter in early 1905, to produce wood for the support and mine support. The two-foot tramway connecting mines and smelters was also completed in 1905 - the peak year for copper production at Mount Molloy. At this time, Mt Molloy Copper Mining Company Limited was launched, with John Moffat as Chairman.
Since the smelter copper matte still needs to be transported by road to Biboohra and high copper prices in 1906, Mount Molloy Ltd. started building a 19-mile-65 (31.9 km) private rail line from Biboohra to Mount Molloy smelter in 1907. However , the cost of this rail, combined with a decline in copper prices by the end of 1907, means that by the time the train opened on August 7, 1908 the company was already in financial trouble. Smelter had ceased operations while waiting for the train to be completed, and a short smelting campaign was conducted in late 1908.
Although mining operations are no longer profitable at Mount Molloy, alternative sources of income are in wood. The emergence of sawmills in the Cairns region is part of the industrial evolution in Queensland over time. Although there was a timbergetting at the northern end of the 1870s, the East East Queensland sawmill (mainly Maryborough) saw most of the need for sawn timber from central and northern Queensland until sawmills in the Cairns district from 1880 reduced dependence on the south. In 1888 there were three sawmills in the Cairns district, including Union Saw and Planing Mills in Stratford (E Martin and Son), and a steam-powered sawmill also set up at Carrington in 1889.
The first steam-powered sawmill in Queensland was opened in Brisbane in 1853 and prior to World War II, most sawmills in Atherton Tablelands use steam engines. Reliable water sources are needed for steam boilers that move the engine, and the latter is usually equipped with large flywheels, because the energy stored in the flywheel allows the saw to make large cuts with a minimum speed loss. Power is transferred to a saw through a belt, a pulley and a shaft. However, most machines are sold, relocated and reused when sawmills close, causing lack of relics in most sawmills.
The fact that Mount Molloy Ltd is building a railway to a timber source makes the company turn to viable timber, because wood can be efficiently transported to a sawmill located along the railway network. The Queensland sawmill was originally located in big cities, close to the market for sawn timber. As the industry develops, there is a tendency to look for factories near resources only if there is sufficient stock to survive during the investment period. Sawmills are also initially located on the banks of rivers and creeks, where logs can be transported or transported by boat, but when trains are established, sawmills are located at or near railroad tracks.
The spread of railways in the Cairns region thus facilitates the timber industry. The Tablelands railway reached Mareeba from Cairns in 1893 and Atherton in 1903, allowing Tableland timber to be transported to shore, and the expansion of trains over the next two decades made the Cairns region a major sawmill outside South East Queensland. Large sawmills in the Far North region include Cairns Timber Limited, Lawson and Sons, and JM Johnston.
The timber industry is accompanied by closer settlements, since agriculture usually begins after the soil is cleared by logging; Although before 1884 the Land Law of the Crown introduced royalties on timber, it was easy for timbergetters to pick up land, pick up wood, and then cancel the election. The forestry industry is second only to mining as a settlement cause in Far North Queensland. At Mount Molloy, dairy farming that follows logging allows the city to withstand the failure of mining.
Since Mt Molloy Ltd discovered a new interest in the timber industry, in December 1907 Anthony Linedale, one of the company directors, corresponded with the Forest Director, Queensland Public Land Department, about the activities of Mount Molloy Ltd and its Timber Requirements. He noted that the company employs 173 people in the mine, 124 people in smelters and refineries, 17 officers, 18 workers, 10 wood searchers, 19 men in the Biboohra railway yard and 320 people built the Molloy railway. That month the Forest Director recommends 10,000,000 superficial feet (1 super foot is a timber volume representing 2,360 cubic centimeters (144 Â ° c) sold without competition to Mount Molloy Ltd, more than 5 years, with a minimum displacement of 30,000 ft per month, royalties to be a 25 percent down payment on the minimum royalties specified by the timber regulation for that district. The forest concession covers 16,000 acres (6,500 ha) of Crown land north of Mount Molloy.On 6 March 1908 agreement on a concession was made between Mount Molloy Ltd and Alexander Patrick Cameron, Land Commissioner for the Cairns District, with royalties payable monthly from June 1908. One condition, regretted by Molloy Ltd, is that all logging must be done, encountered in Queensland, inability to export logs and then cause kauri timber to collect on Mount Molloy.
However, the right to cut timber meant that the new railway had at least something to transport, since the smelter had been closed at the end of 1908 due to an ore shortage, and the mine itself closed at the end of 1910. A 5-year timber concession made it possible. Molloy Ltd persisted, and in its half-year report until December 31, 1908, presented in April 1909, it was mentioned that contract workers haul timber from the company's concessions. In addition, the bull team, two horse teams and a traction machine are under the control of the company. Extracted timber includes hickory, cadagi, kauri pine, and red cedar; more than 2 million super-wood legs were sent to the depot, while 882,574 super feet were shipped by rail for half a year.
The report also notes that the Rifle sawmill (perhaps a small sawmill near the smelter) has worked intermittently on local orders. Since it is not located in the railway, it is not suitable for cutting stocks that accumulate. A sleeping mill (for producing railway sleep) has also been laid "on a 10 branch line of branches (660 ft., 200 m), leaving the main line near the western triangle point, and crossing the southern east end of Ridge Works Works." When the rotating triangle (and the first railway station in the city) once lies east of the Vains Close in Mount Molloy, and the 1914 survey map shows a siding place to the Johnston sawmill site, the bed plant may be located where Johnston built the sawmill.
It was also reported in April 1909 that the company had acquired the Granite sawmill at Mareeba, with the plant hired for one year, with option of purchase or lease extension for 4 years or more. According to the company's next half-yearly report (presented October 1909), the Mareeba cutting plant attracted almost all log supply from Mount Molloy.
When logging and sawmills have provided the capital to continue the mining operations of the company, the near end of a 5 year timber concession from Mt Molloy Ltd means that the company was liquidated on March 3, 1913. Despite the end of the original timber concessions, the liquidators (including John Moffat from December 1915) was allowed to continue to cut wood (excluding cedar) from December 1913, to 10 million feet of super approved in 1908, or until the government bought a train to Mount Molloy.
The purchase of the railroad government from Biboohra to Mount Molloy has been looming for some time. In 1910, Moffat had approached the Queensland Government, asking for  £ 40,000 (cost limit of  £ 46,600); and by the end of March 1913, a representative of the inhabitants of Mount Molloy to the Railway Commissioner pointed out that if the line was torn as a result of the liquidation of the company, it would be disastrous for those who had settled around it. In the end, Moffat received £ 17,500, the government took over the line on 1 March 1917 under the Mount Molloy Railway Act of 1917. At this time the extension of the timber concession is over. The government also took over the Chillagoe Company and its assets in June 1919.
Although Mount Molloy Ltd failed, another company based on wood saved Mount Molloy from extinction. John Michael Johnston, born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1884, has worked in sawmills in Northern Europe, Canada and New Zealand before he moved to North Queensland. After the search period, he returned to the sawmill, first at Innisfail, then Tolga, before entering into business on his own behalf at Ravenshoe. On January 15, 1914, the Cairns Post announced that Messrs Polentz and Johnson (sic-Johnston) had purchased the Mount Molloy sawmill, and intended "to start operations immediately". The ads that year for Mount Molloy Saw and Planing Mills from Johnston and Polentz noted that hickory is their specialty. A few years later it was reported that Johnston had taken over what was left of the sawmill in town and had renovated it.
Because the sawmill was only very small when Johnston took over, the living boiler and steam engine equipment at the Johnston sawing site might be installed between 1914 and 1938. A photo of c. 1938 shows that survival equipment already exists: Marshall steam engine and boiler are under separate open warehouses, white painted boiler bricks, and winch walkers operate with rigid legs of tow cranes. At this moment the base of the brick chimney is shorter and lies closer to the boiler. The chimney appears to have been in the current position in 1954.
The Marshall steam engine is the prime mover for a saw in the factory, running a flat belt from its flywheel. That, along with other steam engines at the factory, was powered by the Stirling boiler, which was fed wood chunks. Stirling boiler is a water tube boiler, where the water to be heated is contained in a tube, with flames flowing around outside-in contrast to the flame tube boiler, which has a fire passing a tube surrounded by water. This type of water tube is preferred for larger boilers for safety reasons. The most popular dried water tube boilers in the early 1900s; many of the 30 or so installed in Victoria between 1904 and 1912 are large boilers for power plants or larger manufacturers. Most of the activities related to the installation of Stirling boilers in Queensland, based on newspaper ads, appeared to be between 1900 and 1914, and the Agent for Queensland in 1903 was Norman M Bell.
Mount Molloy boilers are of type "W", with three steam drums at the top and two drums of water at the bottom, spliced ​​with a tube. However, the additional steam drum at the top is not a standard feature; nor is the area of ​​the metal furnace in front. The additional steam drum is fired (not directly connected to the steam evaporation part of the boiler), so the boiler can still be considered a five drum type; Extra drums may be needed to maximize steam to the engine when cutting is done along the log. The dimensions of the boiler are 8 feet 10 inches (2.69 m) wide; Length 20 feet 11 inches (6.38 m) and 19 feet (5.8 m) high. This corresponds to the size of the 1W Stirling boiler.
In September 1916, the Cairns Post reported that Johnston had his new hardwood plant, and that sawn timber was being sent to the train. In 1917 the paper reported that sawmill was "the main place in place (Mount Molloy) in terms of work". However, logs can not be transported to sawmills in the rainy season, and expansion of the railway to the north is required to keep the plant working throughout the year. By the end of 1917, two sawmills were operating in the district, cutting timber from Crown lands. The second sawmill may also belong to Johnston, as it was reported in May 1918 that he has an 8 mile (13 km) sawmill from Mount Molloy, on the edge of the bush.
In 1920 the government initiated an extension of 7 miles from the railroad to the north, to facilitate further logging and closer settlements (the soil to the north of Mount Molloy to be better than between Biboohra and Mount Molloy). A new railway station was built on Mount Molloy, to the northeast of the old station, and the old lane to the smelting site was abandoned as the driving lane for using Johnston sawmills. The railway line opened for Rumula in December 1926, but was never extended to Port Douglas, as some settlers expected. This could provide an alternative route to the beach if the Kuranda section on the Tablelands railroad is blocked again, as it was in early 1911.
In March 1930, the Johnston sawmill runs 12 months of the year and enjoys a "practical monopoly" in the supply of butter boxes and fruit boxes in northern Queensland. Johnston added to Mount Molloy's sawmill until 1926, at about that time he moved to Stratford, where he built another sawmill in 1921. By the late 1920s, the labor of the Mt Molloy sawmill had dropped from about 100 to 60.
After Johnston moved to Stratford, WJ Colley became manager at Mount Molloy and he bought three trucks and some caterpillar tractors to use in the bushes. This may have offended someone, because on the morning of 17 September 1930, the front end of a 5-ton-long Mercedes Benz (5.1 ton) truck was destroyed with explosives, damaging nearby homes.
In 1931, the Minister of Land, William Deacon, visited Mount Molloy and expressed surprise at finding a cutting-edge sawmill lying behind a poor land between Biboohra and Mount Molloy. However, on June 14, 1932, a fire near the boiler spread from the engine and the main block, damaging the repair shop in the factory. In August 1932, factory employees were informed that their work was suspended, and that they should apply to Mr. WJ Colley to be re-involved. A new private company, Molloy Sawmills Pty Limited, is listed under the directorship of JM Johnston, W Marlay and WJ Colley. Johnston still owns factories, but leading employees are part of the business so they will have an incentive to safeguard their interests.
Johnston was still the owner of Mount Molloy's sawmill when burned on January 31, 1934, William J Santowski became manager at the time. It was reported that "One 350 hp boiler is in a destroyed building, also a Sandycroft steam engine; a double-hulled twisting machine that destroys plants, four saw chairs, a planing machine, saw saw, belting, shafting and pulleys and other tools. from various descriptions, 29 circular saws, one rotating rolling roll, two saw the sharpening machine, three chainsaws crossed ". However, employees can protect the boiler, main engine, and pump the plant from serious damage. There are also two other planing machines in separate buildings that are not destroyed. Before the fire, Johnston had purchased a machine for a new sawmill at Shipton's Flat near Cooktown, and after the fire he put some engines on Mount Molloy. He claims that the latter is a paying proposition and a very important part of his organization. It is also important to have a plant on Mount Molloy, as most of the hardwood supply comes from there.
But another fire occurred on the night of 12 September 1938, in the planning building. As a result, Johnston used the planning facilities at his Stratford slaughter until the sawmill at Mount Molloy was repaired. After Johnston died in Cairns on May 1, 1943, it was stated that he was "one of the most famous men in northern Queensland". After his first sawmill at Ravenshoe, he has developed a series of Johnston plants, including Mount Molloy, Stratford, Mareeba, Millaa Millaa, Bloomfield River, and Shipton's Flat.
Bunning Bros purchased Johnson's Stratford and Mount Molloy factories in the late 1940s or early 1950s (though the 1991 Grant Act for the field where saw steam stands were made for JM Johnston Pty Ltd) and Rankine Bros bought Mount Molloy saws in the early 1960s, an. Electricity from the grid had arrived at Mount Molloy in 1956, and from 1968-86 Rankine Bros. operated a sawmill on Mount Molloy, close to the original sawmill location of Johnston. In 1988, the World Heritage List of Tropical Wetlands between Townsville and Cooktown stopped logging on Crown land, forcing timber workers to look for alternative forms of employment. The sawmill, minus its engine, still stands early in 2011, along with a small office building that may have been moved from elsewhere on old Johnston sawmill sites (well beyond the inheritance limits).
The last fire destroyed the Johnston sawmill in 1963, and this time it was not rebuilt. The railway line to Mount Molloy closed on 30 April the following year. In 1973, a wooden warehouse was still around the kettle, along with a small warehouse on top of the Steam Walkers winch, and a tow crane still existed. Another warehouse is southeast of the steam engine, arranged at a lower level. Buildings and cranes have been removed. Two other steam engines that were present in 1973 were no longer on site - Tangye, Birmingham's vertical single-cylinder engine and Thompson & amp; Co., Castlemaine, Victoria, single horizontal cylinder engine No.22 (previously used by Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company). The Pickering-type governor was also present in 1973 on the Marshall steam engine, but this has been removed.
Although Johnston's Mt Molloy sawmill ceased to exist, the sawmill steam factory persisted as a very visible and evocative reminder as the timber industry became North Central's economic mainstay.
Maps Johnston's Sawmill Steam Plant
Description
The rest of the steam plant from JM Johnston sawmill is located at the southern entrance to Mount Molloy on the corner of Santowski Crescent and Peninsular Development Road (Mulligan Highway), on the grass site above the street level. The land rises to the west and falls to the south.
Boiler water tube Stirling is the largest component of steam mill, located on the northeast side of the group of objects, nearest the crossroads. The boiler surrounds and chimneys and chimneys are made with bricks, with metal frames. This is a type of "W" boiler, with three metal vapor drums on the top and two metal water drums at the bottom, joined with metal tubes; plus extra drums on top. Top drum is supported on the metal frame, while the two bottom drums move freely with tube expansion. The manufacturer's name is thrown at the metal access door to the tubing: "The Stirling Boiler Co. Ltd, Edinburgh & London". The furnace door is located at the southeastern edge of the boiler, while the brick chimney and base of the chimney are located at the northwest end. The main steam pipe is still there. The current vegetation grows from brick boilers.
Metal blowdown tank, cylinder tool with ventilation pipe, connected to the boiler, is located about 7 meters (23 ft) to the west of the southernmost corner of the boiler. The blowdown tank is used to flush the sediment out of the boiler under pressure, by allowing the steam to extinguish the ventilation pipe while the hot water is drained.
About 7.6 meters (25 ft) south-west of the boiler, to the west of the blowdown tank, is a Walkers Steam Walker Ltd (Maryborough), which is used to drive a rigid crane winch to move the logs. Winch is a horizontal twin-cylinder reversing single-drum second-motion steam winch; its steam cylinder is 8 inches (200 mm) in diameter, and the stroke is 14 inches (360 mm).
About 7.6 meters (25Ã, ft) south of the boiler is a Marshall steam engine. There is no manufacturer name on the machine, but it has Marshall, Sons & amp; Engine Co. (Gainsborough, UK), in particular their class C model, which is paired with Hartnell's automatic expansion gear. The last example is still on the machine beside the flywheel.
The engine is horizontal (horizontal cylinder) cross-compound (high pressure plus low pressure cylinder, adjacent) stationary steam engine. It was once equipped with a tailrod extension on a low pressure cylinder, and the crosshead casting casting has since been broken. High and low pressure cylinders were initially left behind with wooden strips held by brass bands, but most of the wood had rotted. The high pressure cylinder hole is about 15 inches (380 mm) in diameter while the low pressure cylinder hole is about 24 inches (610 mm) in diameter. The second stroke of the cylinder is 36 inches (910 mm), while the flywheel is 10 feet (3.0 m) in diameter, and 21 inches (530 mm) wide. The machine is mounted on a concrete base, with a concrete trough for the flywheel.
Some wooden relics, plus metal objects such as pipes and laddering, also survive on site.
Historical list
Johnston's Sawmill Processing Factory was previously listed on the Queensland Heritage List on July 15, 2011 after meeting the following criteria.
This place is important in showing the evolution or historical pattern of Queensland.
The steam generator at the JM Johnston sawmill site on Mount Molloy, as part of a large and long-lived sawmill, was important in demonstrating the presence of the timber industry in North Queensland before the Wet Tropical World Heritage list in 1988 The presence of large rainforest tracts and the spread of railroads fire in the interior of Cairns ensured that at the beginning of the 20th century the area became the main sawmill outside of Southeast Queensland and the timber industry was second only to mining as a driver for North Queensland economic growth.
The Johnston sawmill, built on smaller sawmills associated with previous copper mining activities at Mount Molloy, operated from 1914 to 1963 as a city-based permanent factory, allowing the town of Mount Molloy to survive the failure of mining.
This place also shows the importance of steam power for sawmill operations in Queensland, before widespread availability of electricity.
This place shows rare, endangered or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
Steam engines have been a common form of power generation in sawmills in Queensland, and examples of stationary steam engines in place and associated boilers at sawmills are now scarce across the state.
Stirling water tube boilers and blow down tanks, Marshall steam engine and winch Walkers steam are substantially intact and still show the setting of this type of equipment in a steam-powered sawmill.
The use of Stirling's steam boilers and large stationary steam engines is also rare in sawmills, which generally use a single-cylinder steam engine or portable steam engine, and this example may be unique in Australia.
This place is important because of its aesthetics.
The remaining plant from sawmill JM Johnston is a very visible landmark, located at an elevated corner on the main road to Mount Molloy from the south. An evocative legacy is often photographed by passing tourists.
This place has a special relationship to the life or work of a particular person, group, or organization in the history of Queensland.
During his lifetime JM Johnston, whose business was active during the early 20th century expansion of the timber industry in the Cairns region, is a renowned figure in the North Queensland sawmill industry. He set up factories in Ravenshoe, Mount Molloy, Stratford (Cairns), Mareeba, Millaa Millaa, Bloomfield River and Shipton's Flat near Cooktown.
References
Attribution
This Wikipedia article is originally based on the "Queensland Heritage List" published by the State of Queensland under the CC-BY 3.0 AU license (accessed on July 7, 2014, filed on October 8, 2014). The initial geo-coordinates are calculated from the "Queensland inheritance limit" published by the State of Queensland under the CC-BY 3.0 AU license (accessed on September 5, 2014, filed on October 15, 2014).
External links
Media related to Johnston Steam Sawmill Factory on Wikimedia Commons
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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